Kumta to Gokarna - Beach Trek

Date: 24th - 25th Nov 2006

We went on a one day beach trek , above mentioned covering roughly 25 km in a day. The trip was amazing. Since I am short for time at the moment(end semester is upon us), I recommend you to my friend's blog "mojosday.blogspot.com" for the details and experiences on the trek along with some breathtaking photographs

They told me - there are two kinds of people. There are Police and then there are criminals. Well, I say, when you are looking down the barrel of a gun, what's the fu**ing difference?

- Jack Nicholson in The Departed

Close Encounters of a Shady Kind[Part 2]

Two weeks Later -


He was crouching low behind some bushes. This was an ultra-realistic environment. The latest graphic cards' processing power could now crunch out billion of shaded pixels per second, thus the line between virtual environments and real environments was fast diminishing. This was a different gameplay. It was only one frag this time. Whoever got the first shot at the opponent was the winner. The arena was almost limitless and stealth was of utmost importance. He knew that Silent Warrior had let down his guard. He was tired now. Patience pays, and he was glad that this was one virtue that he did not lack. It was dark now. The transform and lighting effects was mindblowing. Even the shadows of the trees billowed with the wind. The moon was out and just threw enough light on the arena, almost teasing the opponents.

His moment was now coming close. Beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead in the moonlight. He had to show himself sooner or later. He waited, this would be his retribution, and he would execute his vengeance in fine style. Dressed all in black, he was almost invisible, blending in with the shadows seamlessly.

And then... there it was, the silhouette of his enemy, the one and only. He silently picked up his gun, drew the beads and squeezed the trigger. Thrice, in quick succession. The silhouette went down; the rag doll physics was excellent, thanks to the physics engine.

Wait a minute... Quake 3 did not have a Rag doll physics engine. Why didn't Silent warrior explode into pieces of flesh and blood? Where was the 'You win!' text? Slowly, it dawned upon him; just as slowly as the sun rising over the horizon. This was no arena. This was real life. There were no frags and respawning. There was only one life and death. He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. Well, this time he had won, and in that too in what style. He had made his mark. Now, he would never be challenged by the Silent Warrior again. As well, he would no longer pose a threat anyway, now that he had been conquered...

Close Encounters of a Shady Kind! [Part I]

He was breathing hard. His heart beat was easily doing 150 beats a minute. Sweat was pouring down the edges of his eyebrows and trickling down his cheek and drowning in the collar of his shirt. Inspite of the heavy exertion, there was nothing but absolute concentration on his eyes as he stared rigidly ahead like a horse on blinkers would.

Hold on... you have almost got it... he urged himself on silently, but he never let his guard down even the slightest. This was his judgement day. He crouched down silently in a dark corner waiting for his prey. Now, he was ready for him.

Suddenly, there was a bluish streak of light and before he could react, he was blown to pieces of muscle and the blood spattered all over the floor. Silent Warrior wins! He flung the keyboard across the room in fury and pulled at his hair wildly in a gesture that showed despair and a hint of something that was difficult to comprehend. His mouth opened wide in a 'No', but no sound escaped his mouth. It had died out in his throat. He had been fragged by Silent Warrior again. that too when both were 19 frags each and he was one frag away from claiming victory himself.

After a while, he steeled himself. A cold emotionless look returned to his face that was almost death itself. he picked up his keyboard, placed it front of him, and uttered a single 'Yeaaaaaaaaaah'; that was his characteristic warcry; it was not a show that he was putting on for anyone who might be watching him play at the moment, but more to re-energize himself before another gruelling session.

Three hours ,a pool of sweat on the floor, five discarded coffee cups and two broken keyboards later, Silent Warrior was still standing triumphant and undaunted. He gave up for the night resignedly. Every dog has his day, was the last cliche that sprang to his tired mind as he collapsed on his bed and went into a deep but troubled sleep.

The American B****rds

Recently, I saw a documentary on the 9/11 incidents which showed compelling evidence to prove that they were actually an intricate plan by the American government. Yes, thats right!

Now, why would they want to do such a preposterous thing? The reasons are so simple, the blind American citizens don't see it and neither does the rest of the world. America has this insane power fetish. They want to prove that they can do as they like and get away with it too. And they did. Look at Iraq and Afghanisthan and now Iran looks like the next target. Of course, not all Americans agree with its government's actions. Ergo, kill some of their own citizens and make it look like terrorists did it. America is no longer safe as long as these terrorist sponsered states exist. Bomb them to heavens come. A few hundred American lives is a good barter for the Billions of dollars both the defense and construction industries made out of the war and postwar incidents. Not to mention gaining control of the world's second largest oil reserves to secure their power requirements in the future and also to have a say on the oil prices which till now was being controlled by the Middle eastern states.

A number of documentaries show that the reason America can spend so much on defense allocations is that they manage to keep the American citizens scared. So much so that they think they are not safe unless they own a personal fire arm. Have you even heard of an ordinary citizen in India owning fire arms of personal protection.

The proofs shown in the documentary are too many to be false. Ill write on them some other time. There are simply too many to list right now.

Dawn of A New Day

From the 'The Third eYe' archives

One morn I awoke,
Just as the sun rose.
Involuntarily, a song escaped my lips,
And a tap dance my tiny heart did.

Just beyond the window I spied
The yellow and green and the hazy mist.

The dawn of a new day is something to anticipate
But sadly, every passing day is innocence lost.
Ignorance is bliss, as you well know
But inevitable it is that I should grow.

Treat At The Taj Manjuran

We had a big treat at the Taj Manjuran, Mangalore about ten days back. The occasion of course, the wonderful placements that all final years are having. The treat was a bit extravagant, but then so are our pay packets.

I actually went there two days earlier with a couple of friends to decide the menu for the Buffet, and I congragulate myself that the menu we selected was Purrrfect! We actually named the occasion 'Porki Baays' Treat' ( meaning loafer gang) . We also wanted to add the line 'Free meals' after that, but the Taj authorities refused to put that up (understandably). We had also made arrangements for a bus to Taj from college and back, since there were around fifty of us.

The party started of with some music, they had even rigged up a small dance floor for us, and we had our own speakers and two laptops to act as music sources. Most of us danced till we dropped, most of the dance being the typical 'porki style' to some dance music and other popular numbers which I would normally never listen to. I even went berserk dancing once or twice, that too without a drop of alcohol in my veins.

When the food arrived forty five minutes later, what can I say, the food was just heavenly. The salads and deserts were disappearing in a wink of the eye from the table. The Taj authorities got flustered and grew tired of refilling the dishes only to see them disappear even before they left the room. The chef was of course beaming because he could see us devouring and decimating his dishes with gusto. We even got a photo with the chef who incidentally was a young gentleman, in his late twenties I presume. The desserts were in such short supply, that they had to bring desserts that were not originally not on the menu at all. Finally, they just gave up trying to keep the dishes full.

Then some more dancing ensued to burn off the excess calories picked up.

On the ride back to college, guys were singing funky desi ads on the tops of their voices. Though hardly anyone was drunk, it was not so apparent to the third person looking into the bus.

When we reached college, we took out a mock march past that passed all the hostel blocks just to let the juniors know that we were having a whale of a time and also to show the true 'Porki Boys' nature that we had. All in all, a truly memorable party.

Pandoras Box

Recently I discovered this new website called 'www.pandora.com'. They claim that it is a music genome project. What the website offers is a free online internet radio. Now, what's the difference between this iRadio and others? The idea is that you give a list of artists or songs that you like and the radio basically tries to predict your music sense and plays the kind of music you like. The website creates a profile for each user and tries to get feedback from you and improves the profiling so that you have a better listener experience.

I tried the website and it totally kicks ass. Of course, the downside is that you need a broadband net connection for the experience to be pleasurable. But since our college has just given us net in the hostels, I can afford the luxury. Im telling you, I no longer have to listen to music from my hard disk. Pandora, you rule!

I just love this age of free internet services. If you are a music fan, please check out this website. It is a must. Of course, only english music is being offered right now.

MNC Marketting - a lot to learn from it!

Campus placements are happening in our college, the famed NITK. A time for tension and sleepless nights for many. But since my placement ended even before it started (refer prev. blog), life for me is now far more sedate. So I spent some time attending the Pre Placement Talks of some big wigs just to get an idea of what makes them tick and stand apart from the rest.

While the PPTs do not really provide a good insight into the work and job pprofile in the company, what I really admire is the way they market their respective companies. All these companies for starters don't need any introduction whatsoever since they have such an established brand name. Companies like Google, Yahoo, Texas Instruments, Microsoft and so on.

The first thing you notice is that these companies generally come with a dedicated HR 'suede' member who is good at engaging the crowd. Yahoo Inc. came to campus with their engineering services division as opposed to the R&D division we were looking out for. The pay is great and so is the company, but ultimately the job sucks. But the HR guy from yahoo has you so hooked onto the PPT about life at Yahoo that most people fall into the trap. They show a video who feature a Yahoo employee-guy with a guitar on his shoulders. He goes everywhere with it , office, bike, streets and so on. Give us a break Yahoo. Life at Yahoo is not so rosy. Maybe we are clever enough to understand that. But the common man will get bowled over when he sees a Ad like that. TI also came with a stylish HR guy who made it seem like playing Pool and Tennis was all you had to do at TI and get paid on it. They didn't even tell us what field they were recruiting in and no one was much bothered. Its TI man, declare the awe-struck but not-so-clever toppers of our class.

The fact remains that ultimately as in all things, marketting is the most important division of any company. Whether you have the expertise is only secondary, whether people buy what you sell is primary. Any one disagrees?

Indian companies have a long way to go before they reach such technical standards of the US in the IT and Hi-tech industries, but the point is even if they do, are they up to the challenge of selling their companies to the people out there? Only time will tell. Even you can make a difference. So start now.

I Think Therefore I AM???

Within a week of placements, I have been placed, that too in a company that declares that it chooses and hand picks a worthy few. ITTIAM, the company where I did my internship and also the company I wanted to get into. It was a dream job one might say. But after the dream is fulfilled one wonders whether it is a dream worthy of pursuing.

Friends have their eyes set on GRE and the doors to the portals of higher studies and more importantly USA. Do I want to go there? If I want to, I can definitely get there. But is that my ultimate aim? On the one side is a career and a yearning to travel the world and explore the unknown. Also the glitter of the green stuff is strong, almost overbearing. Senses barely prevail above this.

On the other hand, staying on at home and working in Bangalore does have its advantages. Friends around me, parents to go back to every night and a general comfort that no place other than home can provide you with. I will not be guilty of deserting my parents who have brought me up for so many years. The salary is nothing to boast of, but the work will definitely be challenging and interesting at ITTIAM. But are there companies that can offer me something better than Ittiam? ARM, AMD, Intel ??? For I cannot deny that my greatest passion has been computer architecture and systems design. In everything there is the greatest fear as always, the fear of the unknown.

And of course as Sundi wisely said, Carreer growth vs personal growth. They are 180 degrees out of phase. One means a sacrifice of the other. Can I strike the delicate balnce which promises me both? Ittiam does not seem to good for the personal growth side, no HR team and no girl population to boast of. And I am twenty one years of age and still very single. I dont think it is a question that I can answer now.

More on this later...

FOUR ROOMS!

Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut and a masterpiece. The movie has been directed along with three others including acclaimed independent director Robert Rodriguez. The movie is set in a hotel and each room of the hotel is directed by one of the directors. The last room of course is reserved for Tarantino where he also plays the lead himself. The fourth room has Tarantino written all over it.

The main highlight of Tarantino's movies is the sheer entertainment value of it all. When you walk away from the movie after two hours, it's not the story that was important but the dialogues that leave you mesmerized and gasping for more. The dialogues are so natural, you almost forget thats its happening on a silver screen. Notice how most of his protagonists are about to commit a heinous act of violence in the near future, yet they are so cool both before and during the actual act of committing the crime itself. If I had been so cool before my JEE exam three years ago, my life might be very different from what it is today. Another attractive feature is the style quotient of these characters in his movies. Slick, cool, composed, they never break into a sweat. Admirable qualities to have in any walk of life.

While his proclivity for violence is somewhat of a put off for some audience, I myself feel that if you mature enough to not be influenced by it, you realize that even the violence is tastefully done and does not disgust you, rather it entertains you. Of course, this is largely due to the inherent sadism present in every one of us at a deeper subconscious level.

The narration of a story is just so distinct when Tarantino is telling it. Whatever anyone says, many claim that his ideas are inspired by other movies and he is just plagiarising other works, may that be as it may, i still am a hardcore fan of Tarantino and am looking forward feverishly to his next big release after the KILL BILL duology.

Meanwhile, Manoj Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water is set for release this Friday, so I'm booked!

Corporate, The Movie!

I just saw this movie about two hours ago. While the movie has reaffirmed my faith in Madhur Bhandarkar's directing abilities, it certainly has shaken my faith of the corporate world. If his yardstick of the corporate world is anything to go by, I sure don't want to be an enterprenuer. The fact that nothing and nothing in this world is untouched by the dirty hands of those uneducated, corrupt poli@#$!ticians is disheartening. Cannot anyone lead a honest life and earn their living anymore. There is no longer any place for principles and morals. The dirtiest and filthiest mind is the winner at the end of the day.

Private corporates are screaming their minds out that the movie is just plain false and maligns the name of the private corporate houses. While not all companies involve in dirty politics to have their way, it certainly cannot be stated that the movie is brewing up outrageous fiction. The truth of the matter is that when our country is populated by incompetent politicians whose only interest is themselves and their bloated up ego, the companies have no option but to toe the line as dictated by these politicians.

After some thought, the usual conclusion is that more educated and intelligent youth should enter into politics and free the country of the present fools who sit in the parliament. But of course, who I am I to preach if I myself do not follow what I preach. So, don't stay away from enterprenuership is what I say. It is only by creating jobs that the country will rise up and prosper, not by taking up jobs.

Pillow of Winds

From 'The Third eYe' archives:

Doggedly, sluggishly he pulled himself up from the covers;
The sun shone through brilliantly through the curtains,
Made not a difference to his wretched self.
The luxuriance of his bedroom mocked him,
The myriad wires in his head were tangled and short-circuited.

The plush sofas, oriental rugs, and rich tapestry,
They all reeked of travesty.

He stepped out into the world, ‘Good Morning, Master’,
That was his personal driver.
‘Not today, Jacques’. He breezed through the gate,
Jacques shrugged his shoulders, irate.

Days, or had it been weeks since he had slept?
His throat clogged up and he almost wept.
CEO of Hardwired was his status and position in society,
Revered was he, that was crowd mentality.
There were many who would kill to have what he had,
Had he known, he would have surrendered them all, glad
To be relieved of all the mindless burden.

There on the yonder, he spied a street urchin,
Not more than eight, clearly not well fed,
Trying vainly to salvage a square meal from the filthy trash bin.
‘Please give me some too’, his four year old sister said.
‘Patience thangi’, said he. ‘You are my responsibility.’
And she clung to his leg faithfully.

An old man on the street could barely walk,
A blind man, most likely his son helped him along,
So moving a sight it was,
To see them clinging to each other and talk.

He rushed back home.
He made three calls immediately;
‘Mom, how are you? Its been a long time.’
‘Shaan, I miss you man. Let us meet today.’
‘Rita, I’m sorry. I have always loved you as mine.’

And that night he was surprised that he slept like a log.

Demand and Supply

India seems to be riding high on the IT wave. The world is sitting up and taking notice. India seems to be the one stop shop for IT professionals. Or so it seems.

While everyone is raving about the quality of brainpower that is being exported out of the country, the story back home is not so rosy. The primary reason being that the exported 'material' is largely stamped 'IIT and/ or IIM inside'.

Every year the final year students of several engineering colleges throughout the country gear up for the 'placement process'. This is the time when companies come wooing to take away the 'gifted' fledgeling engineers to their nest. But the question is whether these engineers are gifted or just have a nice gift wrapping on the outside.

The answer is that the companies just dont care. If we are to speak of how the IT revolution is reshaping the Indian landscape and creating employement for many thousands of youngsters every year, we must stop thinking Google, Microsoft, Intel and and start thinking TCS, Infy and CTS. For these are the very companies which have come out and declared boldly, 'We have a requirement of twenty five thousand IT engineers this year.' So, if you are an engineering college, beware! This companies will soon come knocking at your doorstep.

The truth is that in a population of one billion plus population, it is still impossible to churn out a hundred thousand quality IT professionals every year. It is simply impossible. And yet, here are the IT behemoths ooking to recruit so many engineers each year. Beggars cant be choosers. Yes, my dear lads, if you inspired software professionals, are reading this, you are not the beggars, it is these companies that are beggars.

Recently, CTS ( Cognizant Technologies Solutions ) came to RVCE bangalore to recruit. It seems that they were the third company to visit their campus this year. So, very few students had been placed and the 1000+ eligible student population were still virgin territory. The HR of the company on arriving on campus put up his hands in jubiliation and announced, 'boys! come on, today we are going to hit a sixer. All of you PCs ( Placement Coordinators ) are ready right? We need your help.' What he meant was that since they had come early, they would try and recruit as many students as possible. I may not have the statistics, but to my knowledge two hundred and fifty took the written test and some one eighty plus were gleefully hauled away. what a marvelous performance by the college you might wonder. Is it because we are talking about RVCE, the top engineering college in Bangalore? Quite the contrary, in VIT, Vellore, TCS came first to campus and walked away with a rich haul of 526 students. The total capacity of the college being around 1350, this accounted fro more than one third of their final year student community. In such a scenario, every Tom, Dick and Harry will be placed. A 90% topper and a 60% average Joe. The average Joe has the last laugh. What is the point of studying so hard, he says boastfully, I also got the same job the topper was offered.

Last year, at the CTS job fair organised, nearly two thousand students attended and the police resorted to Lathi charge! At a job Fair!

These companies know that they cannot depend on what is being taught in college. And they rightfully cannot when they recruit from some 500 odd colleges. So they will have to resort to training finally. And the students know this too and several make no effort whatsoever to study or learn anything in college. A clear cut case of demand overshooting supply. False inflation of prices and brand value. In spite of these adjustments made by recruiting companies, NASSCOMM predicts that there will be a short fall of 5 lakh IT professionals by 2010. So the story can only be rosier for these so called engineers. While an average college churns out 500 engineers in 6 or 8 different fields every year, an astonishing 80 or 90% of this output get placed in the IT sector. What of the traditional Mechanical, Electrical and Civil. The truth is that these industries dont have such a large requirement every year adn even if they do, the students ultimately drop core jobs in favour of the fatter pay packet IT jobs.

And so the story of Hi Tech labour continues. The English colonised India in the 1800s to get cheap labour and materiels. The Indians finally realised their mistake, demanded and got independence. But one wonders whether it will ever realise the fallacy of this new IT labour that the US seems to be blissfully employing. I very much doubt it.

Disclaimer : This article only conveys the author's views and does not mean disrespect to the IT industry.

Dogged Day in the Sunshine

From 'The Third eYe' archives

I sat there sedately, in a world of my own. There was a maddening, deafening noise all around me. Some of the noise, I vaguely figured out was in fact directed at me. People were for some reason angry with me. Or maybe they were angry with themselves and I was the outlet to vent their anger. Whatever, it really made not a difference to me.

Life was very lonely for me. He had deserted me almost a month ago, or was it more like a week. Life was so slow, you could barely tell the difference. He said I had grown fat. That was his reason. I was furious. What else was expected of me? I had nothing to do all day but chew on my food. That’s what we do. And he was faulting me for doing my thing. Oh men! They are all the same. I didn’t even try to get him back. It wasn’t worth all the effort, in my opinion.

I perceived a dull thud and suddenly my backside started hurting. That moron, he had just run his car into my backside and got away without apologizing. God, it hurt! Yet I made no effort whatsoever to get up and move out of the way of the passing traffic. It just wasn’t worth all that effort, in my opinion.

The sun was shining down on me in all its glory. Despite, this the insects were bearing down on me with rebellious fury that would have been commendable if not for the fact that it was directed at me. Slowly and painfully, I tried to shoo them away. But they just would not give up. Maybe I was fat. That’s what must be attracting them to my flesh and my sweet blood. After a while, I gave up trying to fight them. In my opinion, it just wasn’t worth the effort.

My life progressed doggedly, sluggishly. Sloth is a sin I agree, but I didn’t have anything better to do. And so there I sat, right in the middle of the road, swotting my tail lazily, and chewing on that blade of grass which had kept me occupied for the better part of the morning. It’s what we do, I consoled myself and continued chewing.

Inspired by a true story

Thought for the day

The step falters, but the mind forges on.

What you do may be insignificant in the macrocosmic perspective of the world, but it is still very important that you do it.